


Another (Peaceful) Day

by SpaceyBot



Category: Monster (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Character Study, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Slice of Life, Spoilers, self-indulgence hiding as a character study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-17 17:14:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29475297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceyBot/pseuds/SpaceyBot
Summary: Three years into their life together in France, Jan Suk finally tries to celebrate the birthday of his not-quite-human companion. Johan observes his quiet efforts.March 10th has never been a day to celebrate before.(Non-canon companion/gift piece for meowtoba's A Peaceful Home. Please read Authors Note)
Relationships: Johan Liebert/Jan Suk
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11





	1. Author's Note

**Author's Note:**

  * For [meowtoba](https://archiveofourown.org/users/meowtoba/gifts).
  * Inspired by [a peaceful home](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24075742) by [meowtoba](https://archiveofourown.org/users/meowtoba/pseuds/meowtoba). 



> Please read this author's note before the actual work lol I'm begging you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Please read this Author's Note I'm begging you lol

**A/N: This is work is inspired by meowtoba's[A Peaceful Home](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24075742)! Please read it first. It has top-tier writing, it's my favorite fic ever, and also this work is gonna make Z E R O sense if you don't. :) Some things for you:**

  * This work takes place about a year after the end of A Peaceful Home
  * It is set in meowtoba's universe/timeline and contains ideas belonging to meowtoba! I don't own anything but the writing itself.
  * There are fat references to little things from her work. If you're like "why does this sound like XYZ from A Peaceful Home" it PROBABLY IS lol oops. This fic is a giant love letter to another fic after all.
  * I got permission first to do this don't worry. 



**DISCLAIMER: This is non-canon to A Peaceful Home's universe. Tis for fun only, based on my own interpretations. The original author would likely do things differently based on her own headcanons!**

**Lastly, follow[@meowtoba](https://meowtoba.tumblr.com/) on tumblr to see her GORGEOUS art. This work was inspired by her art and asks that she's answered about A Peaceful Home. Links to them are at the end of the next chapter. **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay you're good now thank you! Enjoy, and don't forget to follow @meowtoba on tumblr


	2. Another (Peaceful) Day

* * *

Johan sits at the desk inside his humble studio, staring at the paper before him and how he had written on it.

It seems force of habit has made his penmanship so very peculiar.

That handwriting does not belong to him. He had used a name that was not his own. On the paper, there contained no true indications as to where in France he could have been writing from. All of these: habits and byproducts of his more monstrous days. And yet all of them resurfaced just for this: a simple postcard.

The date and send address had been the first thing he had written before anything else.

_10 March 2002_

And after that, a word. A name.

_Anna_

Johan lifts his pen from the paper for the third time.

It leaves a little dot of ink. There were other microscopic specks of ink nearby his sister’s name, from where he had put his pen down to write, only to lift it up again. 

The postcard will not arrive on time, he knows. He did not intend for it to, despite having acquired it a week before. He did not even truly intend to hide who he was from her, false handwriting and alias aside. Instead, the name “Anna” would tip her off, and that alone might sour an eventful and already tumultuous day for her. 

So much had happened during the March 10ths of her past, after all. And so he was here now, writing it on the day of their birth instead. Anna. Anna. His dear sister.

The Monster who had gone West. His other half. A kindred creature. 

A stranger. 

Johan glances up, staring at nothing the way he so often does. The desk where he sits is pressed up against the wall of the studio, where the window lets the sunlight seep in. He can barely make out his own reflection, his own face. They nearly have the same image, him and his sister. With enough thought, he can tell where his own features end and where hers begins.

And perhaps that’s the only thing he truly knows of her. Her outer shell, nothing more.

He lets their reflection slip away. 

In idle moments like these, there _are_ different people to ruminate on still. His thoughts often take the form of that other person, that other face. Again, it is a peculiar habit of his, albeit a newer one with fewer practical uses. Living with someone else for so long does that.

There. Despite the constant noise of a headache clouding his mind, Jan Suk’s face still appears above the din. Faithful, hopelessly devoted Suk. It has been nearly three years living together in France now. 

He is sure his other half would not dislike Suk, if ever they were to meet. 

He is kind. Gentle. Idealistic. Very good with children: a trait endearing to most. In fact, not very far from their home with its red-tiled roof and wisteria-lined gutters is the school where he works. Where he is now. Even the pen in Johan’s hand is from that very school, after Suk had accidentally nabbed it and brought it home with him several weeks before. 

To think someone could get this close and not wither away. Johan glances up and out of the window pressed against his desk, into the mottled picture of the sky. His eyes gather all the colors outside as if to distract him from the task at hand. Green. Purple. Brown. Blue. 

  
  


Suk. Suk had once asked him what his favorite color was. From time to time, Johan still thinks of that.

It had been a nonsensical question many years ago in Prague, but at the very least it had made him laugh. Johan knows Suk deeply, has absorbed the whole of his character. He knows what pleases him, what words he likes to use, what radio station he leaves on on their kitchen radio.

And dearest Anna. As meaningless as a question it seemed, Johan did not know her favorite color. He did not know what flowers appeared the most beautiful in her eyes. He did not truly know the intricacies of her smile and happiness the way he knew Suk’s. And he had never felt the lack of such meaningless knowledge so acutely. 

Johan edges the corners of his mouth up into a practiced, porcelain smile, eyes downcast. It wasn’t quite sadness. It’d never be. It’s simply a permanent weight on his mind, and he has plenty of those already, at least in the literal, physical sense.

He sets the pen down onto the table alongside Anna’s postcard and turns the paper over.

It is unlike him to leave things unfinished if it were in his power or desire to complete something, be it a book, a painting or sketch, a miniature figurine, or a simple task. Nevertheless, he rises from his seat and leaves to change out of the silk, sage-colored pajamas into more proper clothing:

He still has a garden to tend to. 

  
  


//

It is his daily ritual. 

The garden at the back of their property has, oddly enough, become an extension of himself. He has allowed it to. With tools in his hand and a sun hat on his head he carries out the routine maintenance smoothly, starting with the creeping roses and bursting tomato vines: if left alone they’d overtake the garden like flames to dry grass. Then he moves onto the other flowers. 

Suk, on the days they choose to eat outside, often admires those flowers. He talks of planting yellow roses: his mother’s favorite. It’d be a memorial. 

This place would be peaceful enough to serve as one, even though it hides quiet turmoil. The probability of death is still present here within each plant, always in constant flux, shifting at the slightest provocation. His flora are never truly safe. Too much rain, not enough sun. 

Sometimes there are intruders: insects.

Johan wipes his brow with his wrist and glances at the herbs. They had been assailed very recently by some manner of insect, with the mint being the target of their hunger especially. They slip by the wiry fencing that Jan had erected around his plants as if it weren’t there. That protection was meant for larger menaces: cats, mostly, and so the insects thrive. Feast. Leaving evidence of their gorging on the mint’s jagged leaves: holes, cut-outs, and puncture wounds. Only a few sprigs remained here and there, untouched but not for long. He’ll salvage what he can today. He bends down to meet the plant.

Johan pauses, a blank expression on his face. He squints just barely, to tighten up his vision. 

Someone has already cut the untouched leaves. 

The herb scissors from indoors are here now, abandoned. Forgotten.

And with that, the garden has suddenly become a crime scene, although he already knows that Jan is the culprit. He had left that one piece of incriminating evidence. Some detective. He must have done the act early in the morning and stored the clippings in the fridge, before rushing off to work. Without saying a word. 

It’d be unusual of Suk to do so, if it were not for the date.

He is normally a considerate one. He treats the garden as if it were sacred, holy ground and he were some lowly demon who’d burn upon contact. That is, unless he has asked Johan if he could please have some rosemary to use for dinner tonight, beforehand. Johan had watched him from the window once: Suk had made his way to the required herb, idly snipping the scissors in his hands. Upon reaching his destination, he’d delicately lift a sample branch to show Johan, turning it this way and that.

“Is it ready? Yes? This one okay?” Suk would mouth, snip-snipping the air. Johan would shake his head and point to a better candidate. 

That is how it usually goes. 

Today?

Today the man is clearly planning something. And he is _trying_ to be discrete about it, though it isn’t all too hard to figure out what exactly the detective has in mind. 

Johan smiles at nothing in particular. 

Of all the people he could have chosen to end his days with, he had certainly picked the most amusing. Suk, for all his kindness, is still daring in his own way, motivated solely by emotion and warmth and affection. He cannot help but to show his true feelings, be it through a hidden look of longing on his face or a more outward expression. Like a celebration. 

And so it seems Suk is intent on bestowing this little human ritual upon him, after all. This would be his first true attempt, three years into their life in France. Well overdue to Suk, Johan is sure. But he had no real choice in the matter.

He had only just confirmed Johan’s day of birth the year prior.

It had been the Spring of last year: mere months before their outing to the French restaurant‒where Jan had seen Johan dressed up and the first time since Prague. That March had been the first time Jan had ever spoken to him about a birthday. More specifically Johan’s. 

Jan himself had no shortage of people who adored him enough to lavish him with the required attention that such a day called for, when the detective’s own birthday arrived. Children‒the ones he taught and coached at the school‒would run up to him with crayon-smeared cards. Co-workers would clap him on the back and offer a few drinks at the bar. Even the vendors at their local market, if Jan frequented the place enough and they had caught wind of the information from elsewhere down the line, would send their best wishes. 

So carelessly charming, his detective. With proper ambition, he could do the most terrible things. But then he would no longer be Jan Suk.

On such “celebratory” occasions, Jan had no qualms planning a quiet but indulgent day to share his own birthday with, and Johan often went along with it in faint recognition of the ritual that needed to be acknowledged. It does not take much to make Jan happy, and it would not take much to hurt Jan. He knows it: if Johan were to ignore him on such a day, Jan would understand being as kind as he is. But it would hurt him regardless. Such pain is needless. 

Johan would not inflict that on him. Why would he? The other man’s presence has become so ingrained into his human life. There is no reason to shun it. 

For Johan himself, however, such occasions had always been nothing more than a day. An origin point. The start of the end. For many years he had let it slip by, though as a child, his various foster parents had often tried to acknowledge the day, even if it’d been one that he made up on a whim: December 14th, September 2nd, June 31st. They’d believe him even over the foster care records and papers. 

But dear Suk, a former detective whose faith instinctually rested in laws and documents, must have seen Johan’s date of birth in a case report, and been curious about its validity. He must have had the date embedded in his heart even though he tiptoed around the subject. 

It had taken Johan to speak loosely of it first, during a stroll back home. He had accompanied Suk on a routine trip to the market‒an activity he still partakes in from time to time, just to experience the normalcy of it all. Sometimes, he lives vicariously through Suk.

Johan still remembers the day with clarity. March 10th, 2001: Suk had insisted on taking the scenic route back road home. 

Nearly home with the main village far away, they had both slowed down to look through a gap in the greenery where a snippet of the town was visible once more. 

No. That wasn’t quite right. _Suk_ was the one looking at the village, pointing at a house that he believed his co-worker Monsieur Dupuis lived in, with its green shutters and soft masonry. Johan, on the other hand, had his eyes downcast at the life and greenery framing it. At the full leaves and gnarled branches. And deeper still,

At the most beautiful flowers. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


* * *

_March 10th, 2001_

  
  


“It is my sister’s birthday today.” 

Suk’s face dropped, stunned. 

“It’s...your sister’s birthday today?” He repeats, although he seems more surprised at the fact that Johan had spoken on it at all. Something seems to “click” in the space behind Suk’s eyes. Johan suspects that he knew this information already. He only needed confirmation on its validity.

There is silence. To his credit, Suk reigns in his excitement, preventing himself from spilling every question from his mouth at once. All that’s left is pure restraint and a feigned conversational tone, threatening to give way any moment.

“Do you plan on getting her something?”

“Mm.”

Suk could likely count on his fingers the number of times they had spoken about the real Anna Liebert together. Every additional finger is a victory.

“That’s wonderful, Johan.” Suk tells him, with such genuine affection. His face is both happy and solemn. After all this time he was still so careful about the deeper depths of Johan’s past, no matter how innocuous it outwardly seemed at the moment. “Are you going to write to her?”

Johan says nothing. To his surprise, Suk persists.

“Maybe not a letter or an email, if that’s too much.” He backtracks, filing the suggestion away for a different time. “But if you’re sending a gift I think we should‒I think you should send her a postcard too. Or a birthday card, you know?”

Johan makes a non-committal sound. Perhaps.

With that, he takes a few steps forward, past the opening in the greenery: a cue that he is both done with the topic and the scenery for the time being. He’ll ruminate on it. But Suk does not move. 

“Johan.” He says. No response, although he is listening. Suk continues with caution.

“You’re twins. Which means today is your birthday too, isn’t it.” 

Johan stops to give him a rather dull look, though it’s tempered with a thin smile.

“My, detective. Surely your age hasn’t caught up to you already?”

He is only a few years older than Johan. Suk laughs, breathy and wavering and half-embarrassed. The sly remark seems to loosen the tension in Suk’s shoulders somewhat. The hesitation dissipates. 

“It’s just‒before I understood why we never talked about it. But now that we’re‒” Jan cuts himself off. He lets the sentence die, flushing a warm pink. They both think back to their trip to the ocean together, not too long ago. 

Johan suppresses a little smirk upon seeing the boy-ish look on Jan’s face: so prone towards blushing despite how comfortable they’ve grown, despite the things they’ve done together. He hangs on Suk’s words, nonetheless, or at least he hangs onto the spoken part. He fills in the blanks. Now that we’re what? Now that we’re in France? Together? Away from the tiny apartment in Prague? Those are all true. And up until now, Jan had never asked, though Johan has no doubt that the question does cross Jan’s mind from time to time. 

“Don’t trouble yourself with the matter.” Johan replies, softly. “The day means nothing to me.”

Without Anna, is the unspoken fragment. 

“Well,” Jan says, too quickly. Too resolute. “It means something to me.”

That flowery blush across his face has bloomed even deeper into a shade of apricot, gently sitting atop his honeyed skin. He gets out the next bit softly, like he knew he was overstepping, and that it would sound ridiculous, but needed to say it regardless. His hand comes up to scratch at the back of his neck. He can’t meet Johan’s unreadable gaze.

“I’m happy you exist.”

Johan blinks at that.

I’m happy you exist.

What an odd thing to say. What an odd way to say it. 

There are plenty of people who’d beg to differ. Plenty of people who’d still be alive and well if Johan had never appeared in their lives or the lives of their loved ones. He cannot quite hear anyone else say such a thing. Not Dr. Tenma. Not even Anna, his other half, though she had forgiven him that fateful day so many years ago. 

And his mother. He had spent his eternity with the question in his head: had his mother wanted him? Had she stopped living every March 10th to mourn him and his sister? Even with the answer now it means nothing to him. He cannot hear her saying it. She does not know him. He does not know her. 

Only Suk, the eternal lover that he is, would say such innocently reverent things.

“I want to celebrate it, even if it’s just a little. Can I?” He asks. Johan regards him with a placid look.

“If it pleases you.”

That seems to do it for him. After a long while, Jan comes back down to earth and waves his hand about, as if that would shoo the whole topic away.

“Come on.” It’s his turn to take a few steps ahead of Johan. “I hope it doesn’t start raining on us before we get back. You probably wouldn’t like that.”

Johan looks past him, at the blue sky, the warm sun, and the powdery clouds smeared around them. It won’t rain. 

Jan himself, however, is a bright storm jittering with a bit more energy than before, giddy now that he’s gained access to such forbidden knowledge. The man is electricity, even when he attempts to contain himself. It is against his nature to hold back, though he does it for Johan’s sake. With a soft exhale, Johan walks to his side and silently slips his arm into the crook of the other man’s elbow, grounding him. It earns him a look.

“Lead the way, Mr. Detective.” Johan says, and watches as the nickname renders Suk permanently flustered.

  
  


* * *

It has become an immovable memory, immune to time and manipulation.

It did not end there, either. The very next day Suk had come home with flowers‒a common occurrence, although they were notably more vibrant and put together than normal‒and he had made the soup that Johan had once said that he “liked” back in Prague, a testament to the fact that Suk seemed to remember everything. There were no utterances of the typical birthday phrases but Johan had spotted the differences in behavior with ease. He knew. After all: 

Jan’s smile was very damning. It always is.

He had been testing the waters back then. Celebrating in his own little way where Johan would not. Johan had accepted it all with grace, and for what it was worth: he _had_ enjoyed the simplicity of Suk’s affection. The honesty of it all. The earnest care that had gone into appealing to Johan’s vaguely defined “tastes.” Suk had insisted on this so very quietly, and Johan had allowed it with an equal amount of noise. It did not leave a bitter taste. None. To Johan, it was a novelty, maintaining such human appearances for the world, doing as people do. 

His garden, his pretty home, his hobbies: people have those things. What more is a simple celebration? People have those too. Perhaps they also had lovers by their sides, but none had one quite like Jan Suk.

That night, before they had gone to sleep in their shared room, Johan had pressed the flowers into the pages of a German dictionary with the rest of Suk’s flowers: so that they would live forever. 

Johan shuts his eyes, pressing the heat waves from his head. 

The sun is bearing down on him now, weighing on his forehead through the tiny gaps of his woven sun hat. He had been out here for a while, a bit longer than his body would allow. His headache had worsened slightly as if to warn him of his shell’s limits. He’s different now, Johan knows. Two bullets to the head in the span of less than thirty years. He feels as if he’s been alive for an eternity.

No matter. He dusts his hands off. A nap would do the pain some good. The room that he had once slept in apart from Jan still remains for him to retreat to for such occasions. He hears it calling, and it is an easy invitation to accept. Johan grabs the abandoned herb scissors and returns his tools to their place, occupied with the task.

That is, until a flash of milky white scrapes by his peripheral vision. He pauses.

Ah.

Her.

There are very few things (if any at all) that Johan puts in the effort to actively dislike nowadays. Most things from the outside world are met with indifference or neutrality. But she is perhaps the closest thing Johan has to an enemy, and even that is too strong of a word. She merely tips the scale to the left a bit more than others. A pair of eyes lock onto his. 

It is the neighbor’s fat, white cat. 

The stupid creature saunters up to him in greeting, none the wiser to Johan’s less-than-neutral disposition towards it. He stares down at it, eyes half-lidded, bordering on judgmental. 

“You are trespassing.” He tells it, removing his gardening gloves. “Do you realize that?”

It doesn’t. The world is its palace and its borders meaningless.

Johan allows it to draw even nearer to him and stays still as it makes a serpentine motion against his long, thin legs before turning around towards more interesting things: all in a single, fluid move. 

Good. He removes his sun hat and makes his way indoors. 

Johan is sure that Jan wants to be together this evening, and the man has a talent for spotting when Johan is in some amount of pain no matter how negligible. It’d worry him. Besides, he has decided he will accept Suk’s valiant efforts today. Johan has become an avid collector of the most mundane symbols of an un-extraordinary life. A well-kept garden, like the ones all the other neighborhood ladies have, is one such example. Little traditions such as “birthday parties” may as well be another. He will rest for it. 

When he is halfway to the door, he hears it: a quick succession of noise. A rustle of paws against leaves, a strangled chirp, and then silence. 

Johan stops to glance back at his animal adversary once more, only to see it staring back, eyes relaxed and narrowed; a dead bird in its maw. He turns around fully to inspect the creature and its catch. A very clean kill. 

Johan did not truly believe the beast to be capable of such acts any longer. Yet here it is, a true cat after all. He is nearly impressed. Nearly.

It lingers near the horse chestnut tree. When it grows bored of Johan’s curious staring it stalks away with its kill, no doubt to leave it on the floor of their neighbor’s house later, where the wife would inevitably see it. Perhaps Johan will hear her surprised shriek later today. He’s heard it before. The little monster spares one more look at Johan before it slips away for good, a look of contentment in its eyes.

It is indeed a happy, little creature.

  
  
  


**//**

Jan Suk does not appear that afternoon for lunch, but he _does_ come home from work earlier than he normally does in the evening. He does not know it, but Johan is watching. He is watching him move at a sluggish pace, creeping about the property like a thief, thinking he’s in the clear. Bizarre, but entertaining. After what seems like many years, Jan is at the entrance. 

The door unlocks with the most subtle click. 

Sure enough, Jan pokes the tip of his shoes and his nose through the door, scouting, evidently, for the presence of his living companion. How amusing. He is usually quite clumsy coming inside. 

Though Johan’s vision has changed from his younger days his hearing remains hawkish: he picks up Jan’s little exhale of relief at the “empty” space. “The path is clear” that breath seems to say. With mouse-like steps, Jan finally musters the gall to creep inside and‒ 

“Welcome home, detective.”

At first, Jan’s warm baby blue eyes return the greeting on instinct until they suddenly pop wide open at the figure standing on the top of the staircase. The man nearly drops the groceries in his arms after that little double take. He’s juggling his briefcase as well. Or at least, he’s trying to.

“J-Johan!” 

Johan’s gaze flickers from the groceries to Suk, who is scrambling to get a tight hold on everything once more.

“You’re home very early today.” He nudges his chin in Jan’s general vicinity. “What do you have there.” 

Suk clears his throat like it might wipe the happy smile off his face. It instead leaves a wobbly expression, flickering between feigned seriousness and pure glee, the likes of which only Suk could produce. He straightens his back, proceeding to the fridge.

“Dinner, of course. I left work early.”

The monster’s head tips ever so slightly. That wasn’t what he was referring to and Jan knows it. Nonetheless, he humors the other man with a faint smile, even though Suk’s back is turned to him. Suk closes the front door with his foot, and drops the bags onto the kitchen counter.

“Can I ask something of you?” Jan tries, glancing back at him. He’s skipping the usual “how was your day” dialogue today.

Johan says nothing in silent acquiescence. There’s a tinge of guilt in Jan’s voice now. 

“Don’t come down here yet. Stay up there for _just_ a little longer.” He says, pat-patting the air with one hand like it might address any possible objections. “It won’t be more than an hour, I promise.” 

There goes all pretense of a surprise. He isn’t playing the innocent card any longer, it seems. Johan leans forward, resting his wrists over the banister.

“And be a prisoner in my own home, detective?”

In the early days of their cohabitation the remark might have sent Jan backtracking. Might have made him second guess. Now it just makes him smile: Johan had said the word “home” out loud. It is both a rare and mundane occurrence that warms him every time. The sound of the word “home” in his whisper of a voice.

“Please? For an hour?”

Johan sighs just for the effect leaves. He had planned to retreat to his studio on the first floor‒after the initial greeting of course‒ to allow Jan his little preparation time for whatever he was trying to do, but at the detective’s boyish plea and “second floor constraint” he’s bound to a different locale.

He drifts away like a ghost deciding to haunt elsewhere, meeting Jan’s eyes only once as he leaves. Jan is still smiling. He is somehow more excitable than usual. Several notches above the warm equilibrium they’ve settled into. It makes him bolder. Bold enough to banish Johan from the premises as if he were some unholy thing.

In the end, Johan coops himself up in the second floor bathroom and stands at the mirror, idly rummaging through a bag of makeup. What had once been another bag of tools and weapons were now truly playthings, as they were originally intended to be. Simply meant to be used whenever the mood struck him, although the fact that Jan enjoyed the finished look might also be a factor now. 

His fingers graze a small tube of black mascara. He pulls out the whole cylinder to study it and finds its consistency to be thin and airy. It’d only pull a wet sheen through his eyelashes, whilst barley coloring them. They were already dark, like Anna’s.

In the bathroom mirror her face stares back at him. Happy birthday, he tells it, without ever opening his mouth to speak. I hope you are well.

He does his light makeup in silence, on a whim. 

//

By the time Jan finally calls him down, Johan is deceptively different. His lashes are changed. His lips are stained, his skin is smooth. Nearly all of his soft, nebulous features are a little bit more defined, a little bit more feminine. It could all be a trick of the light. Imperceptible. 

But of course, Jan notices. 

Even when Johan’s at the top of the staircase and he’s far down below, he notices. In his hands, he is holding a particularly good bottle of red wine clamped in one and two wine glasses in the other. 

Jan smiles with his eyes; half-moon shapes that take in the whole of Johan’s existence.

“Hey.” 

Suk casually encircles his own face with his pointer finger, using the same hand that’s holding the wine glasses.

“Still not even a little bit for me?” He asks, fondness leaking into his voice.

“That’s right,” Johan replies. It’s only half the truth. Suk laughs.

“Alright then. Meet me outside, we’re eating on the veranda.” 

The table is set the way it normally is, though there are a few lit candles courtesy of Suk’s romantic impulses and the local candlemaker. There is barely any breeze, but it still manages to waft the faint richness of a baked good to them from the oven inside. Not a common thing in their household. Jan usually prefers to purchase fresh bread or pastries from the local markets outside their door. 

Their dinner is simple and easy to pick at. Moreover, it’s German: abendbrot. A selection of cheese, cold cuts, bread, gherkins. The wine is the most extravagant thing, more so than usual. It’s likely Suk splurged on a good bottle to celebrate. Of course, he says nothing about it. 

“So. What did you do today?” Suk asks, topping off Johan’s wine glass. “I’m sorry I couldn’t come home for lunch, by the way.”

He was probably busy scheming, buying things for their time together.

“Gardening, mostly.” Johan answers, and after a long pause. “The mint is gone.”

Suk dodges the wry look on Johan’s face.

“Oh no.” He responds in a withering voice. His sincere nature came at the cost of being a terrible actor. “Maybe we should head out to the store together sometime. Fix that.” Suk suggests, innocently. His mouth disappears behind the rim of his own wine glass, but he doesn’t sip.

Johan is still staring. 

“Alright, alright, I know.” Suk whispers, folding immediately. He lowers the wine glass from his lips. “It’s just you were talking about insects getting into the mint so I went out to save the good ones this morning.” 

“How noble of you.” Johan says, smiling. “I assume you cut the correct ones?” 

Jan has gotten better at finding the rare, teasing notes in Johan’s monotone voice. He plays along well now, less prone to overcomplicated thoughts. 

“Yes, dear. The ones without the giant holes in them.” 

Hm. It seems Jan has gotten better at finding the correct herbs to cut as well.

Suk finally does take a sip of his wine and they finish their meal in comfort, trading their conversations back and forth. Johan enjoys this: living as human and as quietly as possible. He wonders if his sister is doing the same right at this very moment. They can feel each other’s pain and contentment. In a way, Anna is here, feeling as he feels, living as he lives. 

“I am writing to Anna,” Johan says, when all that’s left of their dinner are crumbs and unfinished bits. “A postcard, as suggested.” 

He rarely speaks her name to him, even now. It is always cryptic references to a “sister” and never her name. It feels right that Suk should hear it aloud. He’s smiling now at this mundane news.

“That’s great! Can you, uh, tell her I said hello?” 

Polite as always.

“Yes.”

“Hm. Is that too strange though?” Suk asks and then rescinds it, eyes staring off into the clouds. He looks contemplative. Nothing about this is really normal, is it? The real Anna Liebert is a stranger to him, but he knows her through her other half. “Well. How about…”

Johan waits for him. Suk meets his eyes directly with a warm gaze, resting his chin on one of his hands.

“Happy birthday.”

Johan gives a rare little scoff at the faraway look on Suk’s face, rather than the content of his message.

“Fine.”

The dinner tapers off to an end. Jan collects their plates and brings them indoors. And because it’s Jan, Johan knows there is more still. This is his first ever attempt, despite it being three years into their cohabitation in France, and Jan being the good boy that he is, will likely try to hit all the marks of such an occasion, no matter how subtle. Sure enough, he comes back with a different dish. Dessert, this time. French, as well. He’s mixing gastronomies like a culinary heretic, drunk with the power of his newfound cooking skills. Clearly. 

The dish looks as if it had been pulled straight out of an old children’s storybook, rustic and simple. It _nearly_ has the appearance of bread though the texture is not the same. It is a cake. Either way, it belongs in an acrylic painting, or a vintage movie. 

“Gâteau au yaourt” Jan says, speaking the words almost exactly as a Czech man would. “I got the recipe from another teacher at the school.”

It is a dense looking cake. Brown and almost bare save for the garnishes of colorful berries and white yogurt. Johan watches as Suk cuts it like any other dessert rather than what it is meant to symbolize on a day such as this one. Neither of them truly acknowledge its meaning.

“Don’t tell her but,” Suk says, as if it were something Johan might well do, “I changed her recipe a little, so it’s not so sweet.”

He smiles at the small slice that Suk offers to him. 

There sitting atop the small topping of yogurt, alongside the berries, are the missing mint leaves. 

They eat very little of it, and they eat it as any other sweet thing. 

//

//

It does not take long for the sky to deepen into a prussian blue. By that time, Jan has already finished with the dishes. What’s left of the candles Johan brings inside. He will leave them in various places of their home. When they are lit they will bring the memory of today with them. 

Johan slips into the kitchen to place a candle on their dining room table.

Their kitchen radio is on. It’s an outdated thing that only Suk uses when the kitchen is quiet and he is there doing some mindless and necessary task. Most would have thrown a radio like theirs out by now, in favor of the newer ones, but Suk is oddly fond of it. Its less-than-ideal quality causes it to garble the sound, so that any music that leaves it is antique and nostalgic. If it were garbled any more the sound would be grating. It isn’t. 

Instead, it turns Suk into the most foolishly romantic thing. 

Johan only senses it when he makes to leave the kitchen. Suk’s eyes are on him immediately, the movement tipping him off. He throws him a knowing look over his shoulder, tossing the damp kitchen rag that he had been holding onto the edge of the sink. Then he approaches. 

“Your hands.” Johan warns. 

“They’re dry~” Suk responds, in a near sing-song voice before enveloping him in a warm embrace. Johan succumbs to it with a tiny sigh, again for the effect. That music. It’s playing some saccharine French ballad and it has drugged his detective without fail.

Before long, Suk has coaxed him into a slow dance, or at least an approximation of one. 

They stand in one place, barely moving, in the middle of their kitchen. Jan’s arms have found their natural place around Johan’s waist, whereas Johan’s arms have lazily draped themselves around the back of Suk’s neck. It is not the first time that this has happened, and it surely will not be the last so long as they have that radio. Johan cannot escape. He has never tried to. The wine-scented kiss that Suk leaves on his lips is not something he tries to escape either. 

“Happy birthday, Johan.” He says when he pulls away. 

There it is. He has said the words, and he will not say them again until next year.

“Maybe next year we can plan a small vacation. Go somewhere.”

“What if I told you,” Johan says, “that today is not my real birthday.”

The music almost seems to stop. Suk’s expression is amusing to him, fluttering between suspicion and exasperation when it had been so puppy-like just a moment ago. It settles on a pout.

“Well, first of all: I don’t think you’d tell me if I got it wrong. You’d just let me go on thinking I got it right.” He mutters. “You’d be all ‘it’s fine, Jan’” 

The corners of Johan’s mouth deepen into a smirk at the impression. 

“And what’s more, you had told me it was your sister’s birthday first. I don’t think you’d lie about that.”

This is true. He isn’t surprised that Suk has given it thought, and he is even less surprised that Suk’s gained a small measure of accuracy in his predictions. What catches him is what Suk says next:

“You still miss her.”

Does he want a response to that? Confirmation? It’s true. A simple statement. But then again, can he miss someone he doesn’t truly know? She is like a ghost to him. They share this day together. He supposes that his mother has a part in it too, but like the Anna of his childhood memories she is also a phantom. Each of them are far away from the other, and used to it. This day has never been one that warrants celebration. Johan stays silent.

It must be that lack of response that prompts Suk to pull him into a hug. 

It happens slowly. Suk gives him plenty of time to push him away, but it is unneeded. Their dancing stops. All movement stops. Johan feels Suk’s hand sliding up to rest between his bony shoulder blades, pressing deeper. His face is nearly nestled into the crook of Suk’s neck now, their blond hair mixing where their heads meet. It is warm.

“I’m sorry. I hope that postcard you’re sending to her will be a good start.” 

Suk is no stranger to missing someone. He had lost his mother twice: once to her afflictions and age, again to her physical death back in Prague. That must be what makes his embrace sincere and sorrowful. Suk pulls back to look at Johan, perhaps the way a mother would look at a child.

“ _You_ are the one who told me you’d see her again one day. Remember?”

In an instant, the look of a caretaker melts away and the lover has returned.

“I just want you to be happy.”

In his head Johan hears a different sentence in Suk’s familiar voice, one that he had said exactly a year before today:

I’m happy you exist.

Johan cups the side of Suk’s face with one hand, the way Suk is fond of, and watches as he kisses the inside of his palm. He takes in the other man’s familiar presence with ease now. It is a tangible thing. 

“Thank you, Jan.”

And with that, March 10th is no longer a day that belongs to ghosts. How little it takes. 

// 

  
  


The next morning arrives, and it’s as if everything has returned to its resting state. He retreats to the studio, to the unfinished postcard, and the copy of The Sleeping Monster that rests beside it. As it turns out, Jan _had_ left a “birthday present” on his desk--the one missing piece from yesterday’s celebration. It sits beneath the window sill where it could catch the early morning sunshine.

A strawberry plant.

It has a blue ribbon tied around the pot’s circumference. The plant itself is a frail, young thing that will need to be transferred outside and tended to before it bears fruit. It will be well worth it.

In a way, the strawberries were a promise from Jan, to expand their garden even further. And an apology: for the unforgivable crime of sneaking into the herbs to steal mint. Johan has received many things in his life from many different people. This one is an oddity. 

It is a birthday gift: the final piece. The ritual is complete. He is sure that Suk had left it here quietly for him to discover, so as not to shower too much attention on Johan and risk "overwhelming" him on the actual date. It is likely why he had asked for Johan to stay on the second floor yesterday. Endearingly strategic of Jan.

Johan removes the ribbon from the strawberry plant. It will become part of his growing collection of odds and ends. Most of the objects within that collection had been given to him by Jan. Ribbons. Wrapping paper. Other objects and unremarkable things that he decides to document. They are all pleasant to him.

It is sunrise. Jan has left for work already. A mere dip in the mattress is all that is left of him from this morning, but it doesn't matter. He is everywhere. Whether he means to or not, Suk leaves pieces of himself within negative spaces, all around the house, despite being the neater of the two. He leaves himself in absences: the missing mint leaves from his garden could attest to that. The warm outline on the bed, as well. Many things. 

It’s odd. No matter where Johan looks, evidence of their shared existence seems to have settled in permanently, as if nothing could erase it now. Not fire and gasoline. Nor time and decay. He sees it all around, and it is well with him. 

Johan lifts the little storybook leaves of the strawberry plant with a delicate finger. He was born in a fairy tale land on March 10th, 1975. And he would end his days in one, here: a peaceful home of his own making. 

All that remains now is the postcard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading a weirdly-paced and extremely indulgent story about a goblin wife and his simp husband. Feel free to leave critique, comments, etc. (seriously writing in present tense is my jam but also I get it right only 50% of the time lmao)
> 
> EDIT: SHE DREW SOMETHING FOR IT!
> 
> Here are the tumblr asks that inspired this (copy/paste in browser)
> 
> https://meowtoba.tumblr.com/post/642450502305579008/i-was-wondering-if-nina-or-tenma-would-ever-put
> 
> https://meowtoba.tumblr.com/post/642378516074299392/do-you-think-johan-and-suk-like-dancing-together


	3. The Postcard

* * *

_Anna,_

_Do you remember what I once told you, when we were children? Everything in this world is yours._

_It is true. It still is. I hope you are doing well._

_I am sending a book that I hope you will enjoy. You will know what to look for._

_Happy birthday._

_Jan says hello._

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Okay you're good now, thanks. Enjoy! Follow @meowtoba on tumblr :)
> 
> Also if you have a better title pls tell me I will literally change it.


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